What Hill Will You Die On?

[Thomas Shey]

The hill I'll die on is that immersion is not a universal end goal, or even always a reliable or achievable "state", for roleplaying games. I think it's general importance is overblown and as a result, it gets focused on way too much. Personally I blame this largely on Usenet (rec.games.frp.advocacy in particular), which is where I encountered it being used as a metric for "good games", but I'm sure it's been around longer than that.

Its often simultaneously the excuse for, and the logical end-state of, people who actively hate anything they think smacks of "metagaming" or things like Author stance.

Edit: And I should note that especially when I was younger, but even to some degree now, I sometimes like(d) to play in an immersive manner when it seems practical (though I'm not actually sold FTF gaming is the best way to do that).

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

People who want immersion should go to a swimming pool.

 

[Lanefan]

Is this meant to be shouldn’t? The sentence reads weird otherwise.

Correct, there's a missing "not" in there, now fixed by edit. Thanks for catching that!

 

[Lanefan]

And, because this is the internet - discussion dynamics here are skewed by a sort of emotional distancing, so we don't self-moderate in the way we would during an in-person discussion with someone within our social circles.

All this tells me is that you've never seen some of the in-person gaming discussions within my social circle.

 

[Scribe]

Re: Elfgame.

I'm guilty of it. I say it not to dismiss someone's passions, but to make clear that in the grand scheme of things, it quite literally is a game of make believe.

I have an indefensible number of plastic model kits/built models, in my closet(s). Yes for miniature gaming. Yes, at its most base level, it is playing with toy soldiers.

I have dumped considerable sums, uncountable hours, and 10's of thousands of words into a passion for toy soldiers.

The fact we are 5 pages into 'hills we will die on' mostly in regards to an elfgame, does not diminsh the hobby, it points to its importance and absurdity within our lives.

 

[RivetGeekWil]

Its often simultaneously the excuse for, and the logical end-state of, people who actively hate anything they think smacks of "metagaming" or things like Author stance.

Edit: And I should note that especially when I was younger, but even to some degree now, I sometimes like(d) to play in an immersive manner when it seems practical (though I'm not actually sold FTF gaming is the best way to do that).

I considered that as an addendum because the other hill I'll die on is "metagaming" it is not only not bad, it's inherent to roleplaying games and unavoidable. Now there's being a jerk, and that is often attributed to metagaming, but it's the being a jerk part that's bad.

 

[JAMUMU]

The big hill out the back of my house cos I know the foxholes and where the ground is really soft and also where I stashed all those stones two years ago.

Also, Gary Gygax wrote the finest modules known to man. Exemplary, inspirational. Read them and understand them and you'll never need another game supplement again.

See you at the hill out the back of my house.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I considered that as an addendum because the other hill I'll die on is "metagaming" it is not only not bad, it's inherent to roleplaying games and unavoidable. Now there's being a jerk, and that is often attributed to metagaming, but it's the being a jerk part that's bad.

I'm much the same way, but then, I think some people's definitions of "metagaming" are ridiculously expansive.

 

[Joshua Randall]

No set of rules can cure a player or GM from being an naughty word.

 

[Autumnal]

While avoiding comment on the rest, I was seeing as early as the late 80's.

The pursuit of balance in various forms was important to the Perrin Conventions, on which RuneQuest was built, and Wayne Shawn’s house rules for Superhero 2044, which inspired Champions, and a bunch of Dave Harvgrave’s house rules collected in Arduin Grimoires, and a bunch of others before we even get out of the 1970s. Lots of people never cared much about balance; others always cared a lot about it.